Did you know that even if you have a 401K for retirement, you can still have an IRA? Robinhood has the only IRA that gives you a 3% boost on every dollar you contribute when you subscribe to Robinhood Gold. But get this now through April 30, Robinhood is even boosting every single dollar you transfer in from other retirement accounts with a 3% match. That's right, no cap on the 3% match. Robinhood Gold gets you the most for your retirement thanks to their IRA. With a 3% match, the offer is good through April 30. Get started@robinhood.com. Boost subscription fees apply and now for some legal info. Claim as of Q one 2024 validated by radius global market Research. Investing involves risk including loss limitations. Apply to iras and 401 ks. 3% match requires Robinhood gold for one year from the date of the first 3% match. Must keep Robinhood IRA for five years. The 3% matching on transfers is subject to specific terms and conditions. Robinhood IRA available to us customers in good standing. Robinhood Financial, LLC member Sipic a registered broker dealer I'm Nicole Lappin, the only financial expert. You don't need a dictionary to understand it's time for some money rehab.

Happy, happy Valentine's Day money rehabbers. I know that Valentine's Day can be a hard holiday. If you feel like you don't have a Valentine, I'm going to stop you right there. I would be happy to be your Valentine. So now that we have that settled onto the topic for today, I am not a dating expert by any stretch of the imagination. I'll be the first to admit that. But there actually is some crossover with what I am an expert in, which is finance. I don't mean dating somebody at work that is complicado. But I do mean that there are strategies people use to make their businesses work that also totally help people make their relationships work. So today I'm going to highlight some of these strategies in four acts. And before I jump in, let me say, of course you don't need to businessify your relationship or situationship or soloship if you like keeping business, business and romance. Romance. I love that for you. Get after it. But let's be honest, relationships can be complicated. And so having some extra tools to help you in those moments is awesome, even if those tools are business tools.

So act one is a conversation I had with Megan Wex, a dating coach who created a strategy for finding her soulmate that she called the man funnel. Here's where she explains what that is and how she used it. Before we dig into your fascinating, fascinating brand, I'd love to go back to your sales days to just explain for any listeners who might not know what a sales funnel is, what it actually is, and if you're in, like, entrepreneur TikTok, you've probably heard the term before. Yeah.

So a sales funnel is essentially the process that a client moves through before they close. And in my dating model, called the man funnel, it's essentially like a grouping of leads that may lower from the top of the funnel down to the bottom of the funnel until someone wins the man funnel, aka your heart.

It's really, really common in business to think of a sales funnel. And it really looks like an inverted triangle. I guess. So how did you apply this to dating?

So I was in this boiler room type telecom sales role right out of college. I didn't know what I wanted to do. One day, the big boss slammed these notebooks on the conference table during our 06:45 a.m. Meeting Nicole. And they had that inverted triangle, right? And it had all these lines, and we were supposed to write all of our prospects names on the lines. So when we came in from cold calling and canvassing, that they could see that we had all these new prospects. But the point was they wanted us to know that only 20% of those prospects would make a deal. And for me, that really hit home. And it made me start thinking about my romantic life.

I guess it would be helpful to explain what the funnel looks like in dating through your own experience. If you could tell us about that.

So it's important to consider dating at least three. Why? Because when you're laser focused onto one thing, you have all your eggs in one basket. It can feel nerve wracking.

Okay, so date three people at one time and then narrow it down to two people. And then narrow it down to one person.

Not necessarily. You always want to mind the top of the funnel, because once you start getting excited about someone who's moving towards the lower end of the funnel, it's important to keep new, fresh prospects there. So when those people disappear, which they frequently do, you're not left in a huge slump of disappointment. And I don't mean date, seriously, three people at once. But the number three is a really great reminder to consider the top of the funnel. The best time to get a date is when you have a date, right? So that energy you're riding of that excitement, that wave of having someone that's piquing your interest instead of going all in on that asset. What I want you to do is actually remind yourself that that's the perfect time to fill the top of the funnel and keep exploring. But the only way we can do this is if we're not obviously exclusive with one of these people. What grounds the man funnel? And my whole method is integrity and being forthcoming, having integrity with yourself, having integrity with others, and dating with grace. And this takes very good and sound communication skills.

In sales, you might have a CRM, right, which is a customer relationship management system. It helps you track those leads in a sales funnel. Did you do anything like that when you were dating? Track of this.

Such a great question. I absolutely should have because I remember clearly being on a date with a man asking about his cat, and he did not have a cat. It was a different man. So I advise my clients to use the notes app on their phone, and we put a little chart in there, and they write details of the profile or what to ask on dates, and even what the person might ask you on dates in order to prepare. And they can just study up and refresh themselves on the profile before going on that date.

So in sales, the follow up is also super important. Let's go back to talking about your sales job for a second. If you pitched your product and it went well, when would you reach back out to that prospect to follow up for a meeting?

I think within 48 hours. It's really good. Dating moves extremely quickly right now, especially with the online and the availability of new prospects. And you want to stay top of mind while there's still excitement.

So 48 hours for sales and dating.

For sales, I mean, it depends on your sales cycle or what you agreed to. Usually in sales, I would ask a client, when would you like me to follow up? And they would say, oh, I'm free on the 13th, or call me in two weeks. And I think with dating, that's a little too long. I think with dating, when it's still top of mind and people are really excited, you want to reach out again and at least say something. It doesn't mean you're asking them on that next date right away, but you might want to say, oh, hey, how was your Super bowl? Did you go to your friend so and so's house and remember something that they said in the date and thread that into your follow up message so they know that you were listening to them on that date and that you care about them and what they said?

Yeah, I mean, a big part of being a good salesperson, selling anything, is really understanding the value proposition of what you're selling. And really believing in it. Because I think whoever you're pitching can tell it can be a lot easier to do that in business because in our personal lives we have anxiety and insecurity and all the rest. So how do people figure out and feel confident in their own value proposition while dating?

One of the things I see that throws us off of our course as humans in dating is speculating about why you're being rejected and editorializing the reasons without knowing the reasons. So one way I think it's helpful to get around worrying about your value and rejection is understanding that there are so many correlating factors, scientific reasons and pheromones that draws us to one partner. It's still like an early science related to the chemical portion. And so I like to remind people that somebody else's criteria just isn't really your business. It's just important to know your value and just bring that to the table and continue to move forward until someone feels comfortable with you and they recognize all of that. So the first thing that we would do is deepen that understanding of self and what you bring to the table through a self reflective process and asking five of your friends, like, what do you think that I would bring to the table in a relationship, or even family members, and remembering that the right person is going to see all of that.

Yeah, I think it's important in general to not assume why somebody is rejecting you or not following back up. Oftentimes we jump to taking it really personally. It must have been me. I must have fumbled that pitch. I must have smelled bad on the date or whatever. But usually they have something totally different going on in their lives. So I think that's a good life lesson in general. Act two, we all want our relationships to grow, right? Even if we're in happily ever after land, we all want our relationships to get better over time. Wine style. Well, investors and real life power couple Britt and Dave Morin use a very common business tool to make sure their marriage stays happily ever after. Here's me and Britt.

We have family okrs. Do you know what?

OkRs. I was just about to say that. I was like, I'm assuming you guys have okrs. You're going to have for the bores objectives and key results.

Objectives central. Total nerd central. We do this personally, we do this for our relationship and we do this for, well, we want to start doing this for our family. We haven't started that yet, but we think about quarterly. What are the goals we're setting and how do those accrue annually to our big annual goals. And we actually set them at our anniversary, which is in July, so it's not calendar. Well, we do like our annual review at our anniversary. And so we're like, how was the last year? Did we hit our goals qualitatively and quantitatively? What goals do we want to set for the next year? And, yeah, we do like, little check ins throughout the year. Nerd alert.

I know.

Oh, my God.

Nerd alert.

And so what are your objectives and key results for the boys?

Well, yeah, those are the ones. We haven't started that, but I would say things like, on a scale of one to ten, did you treat other people with kindness this quarter? One to ten, were you open to trying new things? Right now, we're just trying to get them to eat any vegetable possible, not be freaked out by playing a new sport that they might not be good at yet. All that stuff maybe we would do. Did you do things without having to be asked twice, like getting in the bathtub? But we also love creativity and ideation and invention. So we really want to reward them for coming up with new ideas or figuring out a way to do something that no one else has thought of before. And for instance, my son Ansel is always thinking about a better way to build something. Like in his bathtub, we have a faucet that's kind of not working, so he used duct tape to make it spew out the right way because it was kind of going everywhere. And so that was like a task of ingenuity that could get some bonus points in his OKR. We'll have to figure out how we quantify stuff like that, but I want to sort of reward them for being really brave and courageous and creative more than I necessarily care about cleaning your room every day.

Hold on to your wallets money. Rehab will be right back. Did you know that even if you have a 401k for retirement, you can still have an IRA? Robinhood has the only IRA that gives you a 3% boost on every dollar you contribute when you subscribe to Robinhood Gold. But get this now through April 30, Robinhood is even boosting every single dollar you transfer in from other retirement accounts with a 3% match. That's right, no cap on the 3% match. Robinhood Gold gets you the most for your retirement, thanks to their IRA. With a 3% match, the offer is good through April 30. Get started@robinhood.com. Boost subscription fees apply. And now for some legal info. Claim as of Q one 2024, validated by radius global market research investing involves risk, including loss. Limitations apply to iras and 401 ks. 3% match requires Robinhood Gold for one year from the date of the first 3% match must keep Robinhood IRA for five years. The 3% matching on transfers is subject to specific terms and conditions. Robinhood IRA available to us customers in good standing. Robinhood Financial, LLC. Member Sipic, a registered broker dealer as a small business owner myself, or as I like to call it, a pre big business owner, I know how critical hiring is to the success of a company.

And when you have a pre big business, hiring isn't just adding a new employee, it's adding a new family member. The problem I run into is that I don't have the time or the resources to give hiring the TLC it deserves. That's why I love LinkedIn jobs. LinkedIn isn't just another jobs board. LinkedIn is a vast network of more than a billion professionals, which makes it the best place to hire. It gives you access to professionals that you can't find anywhere else. LinkedIn does all of that while making the process easy and intuitive. Hiring is easy when you have that many quality candidates. So easy, in fact, that 86% of small businesses get a qualified candidate within 24 hours. And it really works. 2.5 million small businesses use LinkedIn for hiring. You can post your job for free@LinkedIn.com. Mnn. That's LinkedIn.com mnn, as in moneynewsNetwork, to post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply. And now for some more money rehab. If you liked okrs and you want to take it to the next level, then you're going to love act three, where you'll hear how money rehab's executive producer Morgan and her fiance Jack have doubled down.

Okay, so the contract. That's what we're here to talk about.

Uhoh.

So how did the contract start? Before we even get into it, how did it start?

The contract started because it was a gimmicky way for us to say that we liked each other and that we wanted to continue to see each other. It started, I think it was like month two of our relationship.

Yeah. I think the way that I remember it, tell me if you remember this, too, is that we hadn't even decided to be exclusive yet. Or say that you were my boyfriend.

No.

Yeah.

No, not at all. I think that language was explicitly not used.

Right. I think that there's a line about having an oh so undefined union.

Yes, exactly. It's a living document.

We should say it's a living document. And, yes, I think you're right. I think it started because I think it was you was like, hey, this is nice. Do you want to do it again for, like, another month?

Yeah.

And then we created this living document on Google Docs where we signed. We physically put a signature in, and then I think the next cut to the next month, we were like, oh, our contract's up. Should we renew? And it was kind of like a cute. It was a cute bit as we decided to see each other exclusively and be boyfriend girlfriend. Then the contract did get not more serious, but we took it more seriously.

We would put little. Not Easter eggs in, but we'd say, like, well, this month we went out to dinner three times, and we really liked it. Next month, we want to go out to dinner five times, but we want to try a french restaurant. We've been going to chinese restaurants. We want to try a french restaurant. Or sometimes it was things that we wanted to hold each other accountable to. It was also an opportunity to hold ourselves accountable, not just to hold each other, but it was like, jack needs to shave at least weekly.

Space is so scratchy.

Yeah. But, yeah, it started off as, like, a page, and I think now it's like 50 pages or something.

Yeah. It was just a built in time once a month where we could just check in with each other. And I think that it was helpful because one might, in a relationship, make time for the things that aren't working because they feel a little bit more urgent sometimes than giving someone the compliment or the express, the appreciation when something is working. So it was nice to use the example that you gave. If I was like, jack, we got to stop going to chinese restaurants. We got to go to a friend's restaurant. And then we actually did it. It was a built in time for me to be like, hey, we did that. You made the effort on something that I wanted to do. And so thank you. That was awesome.

Yeah.

But the most exciting thing of all, this summer, you proposed and you printed out all of our contracts and you put it on a scroll. Oh, because I should mention as we got kind of. I mean, the contract was always silly, and there were some silly things that we put in there that are not suitable for work. So I won't mention. But another thing that you did once was you surprised me on a contract renewal by getting these old parliament wings.

Right.

Yeah.

So we would, like, whip out the contract and put on our older parliament wings. And it was just so ridiculous.

Contract was in session.

Contract was in session. But this summer, when you proposed, you printed out our contract on this old scroll. And then when you proposed and I said yes, you gave me the ring. And then you also had a sharpie for me to sign the latest edition of the contract, which had your very sweet proposal message in it, too.

Yes.

And you are contractually obliged to fiance.

So, last but certainly not least, my.

Boyfriend Jared is making his money rehab debut. Jared, say hi to the money rehabbers.

Hello, money rehabbers.

We've recycled some business strategies into our relationship. Such as the one to ten scale, right?

Well, instead of when I ask my employees what level of conviction you have, one through ten. So I can understand how deeply they thought about it, how important it is to them. So I can adjust accordingly. In our relationship, when we are entering into a potential conflict. Potential conflict. The question becomes, on a scale of one through ten, how much do you care about this? Because it turns out, Nicole, you like to be fake angry sometimes. And your level of conviction sounds like a ten. Like a ten. But maybe not. It may be a four or a five. And so, very simply, if we feel it bubling up, understanding one through ten.

How important it is to the other.

Person, how much do you care?

So this played out recently where you.

Wanted to put your lotion on the sink, and I wanted it to be on the shelf. And then you asked me, one through ten, how important is this?

In the lead, up to the moment, it sounded like a ten. Like, oh, my God, this is the most important thing to you? And then I clarified, how important is this to you? And you said, it's a four.

Was it a four?

It was a five.

It wasn't a ten.

But the protocol is each partner has to give their number. So to you it was a five and to me it was like a three. And so the lotion is now where you want it to be because it's not worth it. It's like it matters more to you than does to me. And so this works, I think, in most cases. Most of the time. Unless both of us are a ten at something.

Which hasn't happened.

Right yet.

But I would win. For today's tip, you can take straight to the bank. If you're looking to go out to dinner tonight to celebrate Valentine's Day, just know that you're going to probably spend more money than you would on any other day. So many of the upscale restaurants are doing a prefixed menu thing for Valentine's Day that locks you into a pricier menu. If you want to skip the v day, premium. Tell your significant other that you want to start a tradition instead this year, instead of sticking with that traditional dinner out, the point here is to find something meaningful and cost effective. Once those two criteria are met, the world is your oyster. You could have a picnic at the spot where you first met. You could make Valentine's Day a no social media day where instead of scrolling, you spend undistracted time together, staring into each other's eyes longingly. You could volunteer for an organization that you and your partner believe in. You get the idea? Make it something that you two can look forward to every year. And that is priceless. Money Rehab is a production of Money news Network. I'm your host, Nicole Lapin.

Money Rehab's executive producer is Morgan Lavoie. Our researcher is Emily Holmes. Do you need some money rehab? And let's be honest, we all do. So email us your money questions, moneyrehab@moneynewsnetwork.com to potentially have your questions answered on the show or even have a one on one intervention with me. And follow us on Instagram at moneyNews and TikTok at moneyNews Network for exclusive video content. And lastly, thank you. Seriously, thank you. Thank you for listening and for investing in yourself, which is the most important investment you can make.